Disruption from daily routine and reflection on learning
By Patricia
I’m excited to have that time to shift out of my day-to-day routine and reflect on the incredible opportunity to end graduate school with this field seminar.
We leave for South Africa tomorrow and I, for once, find myself looking forward to spending upwards of fifteen hours on a plane. I’m not typically such a fan of flying, but I’m excited to have that time to shift out of my day-to-day routine and reflect on the incredible opportunity to end graduate school with this field seminar.
We’ve been researching and working on our projects for weeks, but in the context of typical assignments, work, and midterms, I haven’t had the chance to think through the many ways in which this trip ties together the topics I’ve studied over these past two years.
My group is working on a clean energy project. At first, I was intimidated by the complexity of energy issues in South Africa and impressed by the ecosystem of startups and NGOs committed to improving clean energy access and performance. We wondered how we would possibly get up to speed on the relevant challenges and develop actionable recommendations for our organization. While certainly a challenge to work on such a project from so far away, before long, we were drawing upon things we have been learning in finance, case competitions, sustainability classes, and even a weekend workshop on excel tips and tricks. I’m excited to meet our organization partners in person and share our ideas in just a few days!
Business school has flown by and I feel like all the information I’ve learned is swirling around in my head— and on my increasingly disorganized desktop. I look forward to taking some time to reflect on things like cross-sector partnerships, social innovation, and systems change and arrive in Johannesburg jet lagged, perhaps but a little more clear eyed to see how the organizations we’re visiting put these concepts into practice.